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Tag Archives: words

Hated Words, Beloved Pronouns, and Political Bedfellows
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January 19, 2016 by libroshombre

Lake Superior State University has issued their list of “most hated words” for 2016. This is LSSU’s 41st annual …
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Category: behavior, gender-neutral, politics, pronouns, Uncategorized, words | Tags: Anastasio Somoza, FDR, neologisms, personal pronouns, pronouns, so, Texas Legislature, they, word of the year, words
Nonplussed Emojis Not My Fault
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December 17, 2015 by libroshombre

“Mea culpa,” or “my fault,” is probably my favorite Latin phrase; at least I use it the most. This …
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Category: books, communications, English language, grammar, icons, Uncategorized, words | Tags: books, emoji, fault, hwaet, mea culpa, nonplussed, word of the year, words
Fat Ladies, Receipts, Recipes, and Love Talk
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November 10, 2015 by libroshombre

“Two Fat Ladies” is a delightful BBC cooking show featuring a couple of chubby upper-crust cooks who cruise around on …
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Category: language, words, writing | Tags: cunieform, Gilgamesh, libraries, open shelves, Phonaesthetics, receipts, recipes, Two Fat Ladies, words
Bubbles, Words, and Colors
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October 27, 2015 by libroshombre

“This world’s a bubble,” according to Saint Augustine, and I think he nailed it. I recently read a Slate.com article …
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Category: magazines, vocabulary, words | Tags: betimes, bubble, colors, Egyptian blue, fashion, Lapham's Quarterly, Samuel Pepys, vocabulary, words
Admiral Wrangell, Word-Lists, and Venery
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August 24, 2015 by libroshombre

Fishing in Alaska with Outside college buddies can be challenging for librarians, whom many people believe contain all knowledge when …
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Category: dictionaries, placenames, words | Tags: Admiral Wrangell, Benjamin Franklin, samuel johnson, vevnery, wordlist, words, Wrangell Mountains
Prisoners, Language Disrupters, and the Beach Boys
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August 20, 2015 by libroshombre

“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary,” according to Khalil Gibran. …
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Category: dictionaries, language, words | Tags: dictionaries, DVDs, I feel like, modegreen, new words, prison, T.A.M.I., words
Pronouncing, Vocabulary Building, and Murals
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July 3, 2015 by libroshombre

“Pronunciation Errors That Changed Modern English” was a fascinating TheGuardian.com article posted by David Shariatmadari in 2014. He noted that …
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Category: etymology, libraries, vocabulary, words | Tags: etymology, murals, pronunciation, scrabble, vocabulary, William Berry, words
Language Maps, Persistent Words, and Stereotypical Incomprehensibility
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April 27, 2015 by libroshombre

“25 Maps That Explain the English Language” is a marvelously informative way to look at our Mother Tongue. It’s difficult …
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Category: English language, words | Tags: anglo-saxon, bi-lingual, great vowel shift, incomprehensibility, old english, words, wordsmith
Enticements of Etymology, Origins of Scoundrels, and Casey Gets a Hit
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April 6, 2015 by libroshombre

Ralph Waldo Emerson described studiers of word origins this way: “The etymologist finds the deadest words to have been once …
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Category: etymology, word origins, words | Tags: baseball, casey at the bat, ernest thayer, etyymology, grantland rice, scoundrel, words
Library Litotes, Data-Overload, and the Pollyanna Hypothesis
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March 24, 2015 by libroshombre

There are more than a few books in our public library, and its print books aren’t going away anytime soon. …
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Category: parts of speech, words | Tags: abraham lincoln, exabyte, litotes, organized mind, patrick O'Brian, pollyanna hypothesis, words

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